The internet has changed the mass media landscape forever. Before the internet became a mainstream mass media system, advertisers were generally limited to communicating with potential customers using television, radio, and print media (newspapers and magazines) advertising. With the popularization of the global internet, advertisers can now advertise to billions of computer users as those computer users browse the World Wide Web on the internet.
Internet advertising has become a very large industry. Two of the most commonly used advertising channels on the World Wide Web are internet search advertising and banner advertisements. Internet search advertising operates by allowing users to enter search keywords into an internet search service and then Interspersing advertisements (generally related to the search keywords) within the results of the internet search. Banner advertisements are defined areas of a web page that contain advertisements in the same manner that traditional magazines and newspapers use newsprint area for advertising. Both internet search result advertisements and internet banner-advertisements have a significant advantage over prior advertising systems since the recipient of an internet advertisement may click on the internet advertisement to obtain more information or directly proceed to an internet retailer for an immediate sale.
The internet advertising industry for advertising on personal computer systems on the internet has matured and become very sophisticated. The internet advertisers and internet advertising services use several techniques of obtaining information about internet users such that the most appropriate advertisements may be selected for each internet user. For example, Internet advertisement services may track the web browsing history from particular personal computer to determine the interests of that user and thus create a demographic profile of that internet user. Furthermore, the contents of a web page that is being delivered to personal computer may be analyzed to help select an appropriate banner advertisement that is closely related to the contents of the web page.
Although internet advertising to personal computer users that are browsing the World Wide Web has become relatively sophisticated, the overall internet advertising industry is still in its infancy. There are now many new digital electronic devices that use the internet and can be used to deliver advertising to their user. For example, cellular telephones, video game consoles, set-top video streaming boxes, internet radio devices, and tablet computer systems can all be used to deliver internet advertisements to their respective users. The techniques used to select and deliver advertisements to the users of these emerging internet platforms are relatively primitive. Thus, it would be desirable to provide tools that provide an improved ability to select appropriate internet advertisements to users of these new internet-connected digital electronic devices.